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Superannuation & Retirement Planning - Kaplan STUDY FRIENDS NEEDED!

Just found this forum and so so nice to find people who are studying the same course! I work full time and have a 8 month old little girl at home. Desperately trying to finish my last subject in Financial Planning Diploma - Superannuation and Retirement Planning. Would love to discuss some questions...

Have made a reasonable attempt at answering parts of the assignment that I understood (am yet to start question 6 but am leaving till last in the hope that completing the other questions will help).

Is anyone free for me to pick your brains regarding some of the questions???? Not after answers to questions - just guidance in the right direction..

Hopefully we can both finish up this week (will be a huge weight off my shoulders!).

As I said, I've gone through the assignment and answered the basic questions (ie. regurgitating the text in the workbook and answering all the "identify" and "explain" parts of each question).

I'm now back at the start and going to go through the questions 1 through 6.

Question One - I'm a little confused with what they want in this question.. Are they asking what Richard should do with just the termination payment? (ie. contribute to super/invest outside of super??) OR do they want us to explain options in regards to his TOTAL superannuation balance (ie. asset allocation/risk strategy, pension/accumulation options)

Question 2 - Is there a formula/calculation in the workbook for working out the capital the client's will need to accumulate? Or do we use an online calculator for this?

I think I'll finish these two questions and then move to the others...

Thanks for advice. Can I clarify an issue with you regarding working out their capital requirements.

I would have thought that to determine the capital requirements to support a given lifestyle would depend on their: current super holdings, eligibility for social security and use of other assets outside super. I then see these issues are addressed later in the assignment and I think I am overcomplicating the question.

Did you just look at what super they would need to support an income of $47,500, and use this as a basis to answer the question? Did you also calculate each person indivudually, ie assume each of them needs an income of 0.5*47,500=23,750?

BTW, I also put a simpler version of this question to Kaplan a couple of days ago and as of yet have received nothing. Although they say responses can take 72hrs this is disappointing considering the amount we pay. Makes this blog awesome though.

Yeah Kaplan are shocking, I emailed them and the response I got was neither here nor there so I was no better off.

Yes I think you are complicating things slightly. Dont worry about their eligibility for social security as you should only base it on their situation as of now.
If you consider the following points you'll be right.
> their life expectancy... will bernie need the full living exp when richo dies?
> all their income sources, investments, super, bernies salary, bankaccounts etc. you need to think about which ones are you going to include and which ones arent u going to include. No right or wrong as long as you justify.

"Did you just look at what super they would need to support an income of $47,500, and use this as a basis to answer the question?" .....Ummm..no. the calculator allows you to make the projection based on a 'couple' ..so no need to halve the 47500 as the calc does this foryou.

I have recently just completed a workshop for SRP so will try and help out where i can. the assignment is sort of bamboozling me also but i think someone hit the nail on the head earlier, as long as you cover ALL the bullet points in the questions you shouldn't go too far wrong....

i also really want to get this wrapped up way before Christmas and if mad enough may even try and start IP1.....

this may be a really silly question, but in question 1, when you need to calculate the resultant tax treatment of the payment, i have been told to assume an MTR of 30% and justify why i am using that MTR because you cant calculate unless you assume an MTR.

but would i just be using the bulk amount of all the payments and apply the normal MTR ?
$0 to $6000 - nil, $6001 to $35,000 - 15% etc etc etc.